The last few years have seen much innovation in source code management systems. Personally I find these systems to be needlessly complex, and have long wished for a simpler option. Therefore it is with great pride that I announce a new source code management system: Zeus. Its name comes from a particular event in Greek mythology where Pallas Athena bursts forth, fully grown, from the forehead of Zeus. The guiding principle of Zeus is that source code should appear in its final form, and thus dispenses with such outmoded concepts as file versions and history. Source files simply spring forth from the repository, in all their glory.
Zeus relies on a single environment variable for all of its settings: ${REPO}. This is the central source repository where all files will reside. Zeus supports both local and remote filesystems such as NFS. The Zeus command structure is designed to leverage a developer's familiarity with existing shell commands. For example, checking code out from the repository is deliberately very similar to a copy command:
zeus cp ${REPO}/file.cc client/
Other available Zeus commands include, but are not limited to:
- zeus ls ${REPO} : list files in the repository
- zeus ls -l ${REPO} : detailed information about files in the repository
- zeus echo "note" >> ${REPO}/notes.txt : maintain a feature request list in the repository
- zeus cat ${REPO}/file.cc : print file.cc to the console, without checking it out
Another great thing about Zeus is its simple, straightforward implementation. Any developer can understand its workings, and implement changes to meet their needs.
#!/bin/sh # Zeus source code management system # Copyright 8/2010, Denton Gentry # This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify # it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by # the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or # (at your option) any later version. # This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, # but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of # MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the # GNU General Public License for more details. # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License # along with this program. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. exec $*
I hope you enjoy using Zeus as much as I do. Many thanks to Mark Essel for his contribution of ideas.